Hello Everyone!
I'm new here but pretty frustrated with my health status, so I thought I would try to get some advice.

The story:

A week and a half ago I suddenly, randomly had my gums start bleeding. Sure, they've bled before, when I was on a weird med or brushed too hard, but this was just...bleeding into my mouth, any time I would touch them with my tongue. Other than that, and a weird taste in my mouth, I felt fine, but I was scared about my dental health so I added rinsing with mouthwash to my normal brushing and flossing 2x/day. A few days later I started getting a "scratchy throat." Now of course I am in grad school and it is finals crunch time, but I still tried to take herbal immune boosters and get good rest. Within a day though, it ballooned into the "can't swallow because my throat hurts so bad" kind of sore throat. I tried to tough it out for another day, but it seemed to be getting worse. At this point I felt feverish but I did not take my temp, gargled with salt water and made an appt with the school nurse. So on Wednesday I went to see the school nurse. That was the day my neck started to hurt - especially bad on the right side, about 4" behind my ear. She felt around my neck, listened to my lungs, and took my temp (normal), then did a quick strep test. Negative. She also swabbed and sent out an overnight test to check for strep B, C, and yeast. Anyway, about that afternoon I started having green mucus whenever I blew my nose. Sometimes it was quite a bit of volume. On Thursday, however, I was feeling a bit better overall so I exercised for 20min. Apparently that was a mistake, on Friday I could barely walk up the steps to school. I felt shaky, weak, and feverish. Checked my temp - no fever. The weekend was similar, except that the green mucus switched to just mornings, or after anytime I haven't blown my nose for a while.

Fast forward to today - overnight test finally came back from the nurse. Negative. However, I am still having green mucus, my head aches (a little), and my neck pain is about 4-5/10 if I don't take any ibuprofen. Although my gums have stopped bleeding, I've developed a dry cough, and my nose won't stop running. Still no temp. The nurses office told me I could make another appointment when I stopped in to get my results, but if it's not a bacterial problem, there's probably nothing they can do, right?

Anyway, the point of this whole sob story is that I'm in the middle of 2 weeks of finals where I do a lot of physical activity and spend long hours at school. It is NOT helping my studying that everytime I walk for 5 minutes, I feel like I need to lay down and take a nap. Similarly, having my neck throb continually is really bothering me - especially since tylenol is not helping and I can't take too much ibuprofen or I get sick to my stomach.

Is there any point in going back to the nurse? Should I be worried, or just wait this thing out? Thanks in advance for all your help...the reason I thought of posting here is because I did have mono about 8 years ago, and this feels a lot like mono - is it possible to have mono twice?

Hi I suppose a doctor might help a bit better with diagnosis. I have read that once the mono germ is in there it stays. However that does not necesarily mean that is causing present symptoms. There may be a bacterial infection that the culture did not pick up. In one persons case the first culture did not test for specific organisms. Certain cultures don't seem to be as good as others. A C&S probably does a good job if the lab does it right. Some infections of the mastoid area might not be easy to culture. An infection can be detected by a high white blood cell count but this may not detect where. Sometimes a lumbar puncture is done on some people for the mastoid area but if it were me I would not be doing that one since an old nurse told me her story. She said she blames her spinal stenosis on the lumbar puncture. Are there lemons, grapefruits, oranges or kumquats available to assist the body in fighting infection? I would be sure to do some health measures.